Proposal
='Introduction'= I find that every time I try to describe Minecraft, I have a very difficult time doing so. In short, Minecraft, created by Mojang, is a block-based building game where players gather resources and create tools to build anything they can imagine. But building is not the only thing this game involves. It is also a survival game, where players must search for and gather resources, use these raw materials to create other items, find food to boost energy and prevent from losing health, and fight off hostile creatures such as zombies, skeletons, spiders, and more. Due to this last objective, players must use their resources to build shelters for protection. Minecraft can also be played multiplayer, so players can simulate living in a community or civilization together where each has a role to help the community grow and function. This game can also be played in a creative mode, where all blocks and materials are immediately available without the need to gather them. This mode can be used to create large structures that would otherwise be very time consuming. I could go on describing the features of this game; however, the purpose of this wiki is not to describe Minecraft, but to discuss its educational benefits and logistical problems and solutions and to provide ideas, links, and resources for teachers who are interested in using this game in their teaching. Please watch the video above to get a feel for Minecraft's game world, and if you would like more information about the game, visit the official Minecraft Wiki. The rest of this page will serve as the proposal to use Minecraft in our lessons and instruction and to create what will later be introduced as Minecraft Beta Club, an after school program to give students and teachers an opportunity to work through their ideas about how to use this game for learning. The following proposal is based upon Brooks-Young's (2010) Decision-Making and Implementation Model from Teacing with the Tools Kids Really Use: Learning with Web and Mobile Technologies ''(p. 115-120). Some of the steps have been combined int this proposal. = '''Clarifying the Issues' = This section provides an overview of some of the logistical considerations we must think of before deciding to use Minecraft in our instruction. 'What are the reasons for using this game?' There are many reasons for using Minecraft in our teaching. The following list explains some of these reasons. *'Engaging Learners:' The primary reason for using this game in our instruction is that as a video game, it has the amazing ability to keep students engaged. Perhaps this is because games allow students to have more control over their learning experiences. According to Klopfer, Osterweil, and Salen (2009), "The productivity of gaming environments lies in the fact that kids among themselves are free to discover and create learning and teaching arrangements that work for them. So while it is important to understand how the qualities of games themselves support learning, it is equally critical to address how players take on active roles in determining how, when, and why they learn" (p. 3). The North American Simulation and Gaming Association (NASAGA) cites several other reasons why games should be used in learning. These include that games provide practice and feedback, are memorable, provide holistic learning, encourage multi-leveled thought, and appeal to many different learning styles (NASAGA, 2012). Follow this link for the full list. *'Applying Curriculum:' Engaging learners is not beneficial in education unless there is learning value included as well. Fortunately, Minecraft can be used and applied to many different areas of curriculum. Minecraft is naturally able to support math concepts with its cubic block world, and survival mode creates amazing Social Studies learning opportunites concerning community roles and limitation of resources. Teachers can also create writing activities such as having students journal their playing experience or Science lessons studying the various climates such as desert, jungle, tundra, and plains. See Ideas for more curriculum applications. *'Flexible gaming: '''Users can modify the game by writing Java Plugins. This feature will allow teachers to transform the game in any way they wish to meet their needs. Their are already many Minecraft mods, that teachers can use to add instructional opportunities. In fact, the MinecraftEdu Mod provides features such as lesson building, access to special features without requiring knowledge of computer code commands, private server tools, teacher-only blocks that provide students with instructions, a new player tutorial world, and more. *'Large Support Community:' There is already a large player base for Minecraft and extensive support is provided through its official wiki and forums. There are also many schools and groups piloting Minecraft teaching programs right now. See the links page for a list of blogs, wikis, and articles created by these schools and groups. Minecraft in education is a relatively new idea because the game itself is fairly new; however, support for using this game to teach is quickly growing. *'Intuitive Gameplay:' Perhaps one of the most beautiful things about this game is its simplicity. Just a few simple buttons and commands are required for the entire game. Movement and building are so intuitive that gamers and non-gamers alike will find it very easy to play Minecraft. *'Affordable:' Although there is a cost for using this game to teach, MinecraftEdu provides up to a 50% discount for teachers, and their education mod only costs $41 for unlimited users. Overall, the cost to purchase 25 game accounts and the mod, which is enough to equip the school's computer lab, is only $376. Additional accounts can be purchased for $18 each. Although this is not cheap, compared to the cost of a class set of textbooks, Minecraft is an affordable resource. 'What concerns do we have about using this game? Although there are many reasons to use Minecraft in our instruction, there are several logistical concerns as well. *'''Training: Teachers will definitely need to be trained in both operating the game and using it as a vehicle to deliver instruction. This training will take time, and we all know that time is something rare in the teaching world. Brooks-Young (2010) explains that many teachers are not gamers themselves, so even if they show interest in using games in their instruction, they have a tough time figuring the games out (p. 94). *'Cost:' Although the cost is fairly low, budget constraints may make it difficult to find funding to implement this game. Fortunately, there are many ways to raise funds for programs such as this. *'Technology Upgrades: '''Although this game is simple in its display and does not have fancy graphics, it loads all cubes within a certain radius simultaneously. Without adequate processing power, the game will run slowly. We will need to check our computers to see if upgrades will be required. If they are needed, time and money requirements will increase. The system requirements for Minecraft are listed in the "Laying the Groundwork" section. *'Bandwidth:' We will need to see if our school’s internet is capable of supporting a server where up to 25 (or possibly more) students log into the same application at the same time. We can run the private Minecraft server through a dedicated computer or pay for online server space. Servers are also explained in greater detail during the "Next Steps" section. *'Online Safety: Students can play Minecraft in online worlds, and this may raise concerns about internet safety. Fortunately, schools can also set up private servers used only by the school which will protect students’ privacy and interests. Even on private servers, students may engage in bullying or other negative behaviors. Fortunately, with the MinecraftEDU mod, teachers can monitor all student activity. *'''Time: As with all new things introduced into education, incorporating Minecraft into teaching will require time: time for training teachers, time for training students, time for planning lessons, and time for delivering instruction. When time is already such a precious commodity, some teachers may find themselves wondering how they might be able find time to incorporate yet another tool into their teaching. These concerns will be addressed throughout the proposal and on additional pages throughout the wiki. 'What questions do we have about using this game?' The following is a list of questions we need to ask as we examine the possibility of using Minecraft in our teaching: *Who will be involved in this program? Which teachers and staff will participate? Which students will participate? Will we introduce this to the entire school all at once or try to phase it in? *When will this program happen? Will teachers begin using Minecraft in their lessons during the day right away? Will we begin by having an afterschool program or club dedicated to learning through this game? *What activities will we focus on? How will we narrow down how we use Minecraft to teach? How will we develop and share our ideas? *Do we have the technological infrastructure to support using this game? Hardware? Bandwidth? Servers? I have some answers to these questions which I will share throughout this proposal page, and we can discuss other answers and include them on other pages of this wiki. 'Where can we learn more information about using this game?' There are many ways we can increase the knowledge we have about using this game. Some of these ways include visiting other school’s servers with their permission and joining the community of schools already using Minecraft by following their blogs and twitter feeds. We can also learn from our own students by involving them in the brainstorming process. Why not take advantage of the ideas our digital natives have to offer? We should also watch videos of students playing Minecraft and of teachers delivering instruction. Finally, before we stress about how to incorporate Minecraft into our instruction, we should just play the game. It is difficult to think of educational implications of resources we are unfamiliar with. Therefore, we must learn how to play the game before we can know it’s potential. 'How can we address some of our concerns about using this game?' Earlier, I detailed a list of concerns we may have about using Minecraft to teach. In this section, I will describe some of the ways we can address those concerns. 'Minecraft Beta Club' In the video game world, a beta test is a period of time used to assess the effectiveness of the game, its ability to engage players, and its ability to handle a large number of players and perform without bugs or glitches. We can refer to this model to create the Minecraft Beta Club. This club will be an after school program run by teacher volunteers who are interested in incorporating gaming into their teaching. In the beginning, student participants will be 4th and 5th graders who would like to participate. They will participate in lessons the teachers plan and provide feedback. As the year progresses, younger students will be invited to take part in the club, and the older students will serve as mentors and assistants to help the younger kids. This student-teacher collaboration will help teachers understand how best to implement instruction through gaming for the digital native generation. In addition, many students who are experienced in playing video games can help teachers with operating and running the game. This will be a very empowering task for the students. Overall, Minecraft Beta Club will allow teachers who are interested in using the game to teach to explore its potential, work through some of the kinks, and create lessons and activities to support its future implementation as a tool for the entire school. {C}The Minecraft Beta Club plan will address many of the concerns raised earlier. First of all, teacher participation in the club may be approved for professional development credits. This will encourage teachers to invest their time in the club knowing that they will receive credit for their work. As part of the professional development, teachers will record lessons and activities other teachers can eventually use and post them on the wiki. This will help justify spending time and energy on this project. In addition, by holding the club during after school hours, it will not take from in-class instructional time. There are also fewer people using the school network after school hours, and it is likely there will be more bandwidth available. If not, then this project will serve as a good test of the school’s bandwidth and hardware capabilities before Minecraft is introduced to the entire school. 'Funding and Online Safety' Some other concerns raised earlier were about funding and online safety. If funding is not available in the current budget, we can apply for grants or hold a fundraiser. It may also be possible for students to use their own Minecraft accounts if they have them. Since this game is commercially available, it is possible that some students already have accounts. Allowing students to use personal accounts will reduce how many accounts the school needs to purchase. {C}As for online safety, the school will set up its own private server which only certain accounts will be approved for access. This will ensure that the only players on this server are students and teachers from the school. Teachers may want to have their students collaborate with other schools and programs; however, these schools will need to grant permission for the teachers and students to access their servers. In addition, with moderator tools, teachers can monitor all student chats, identify who placed/broke what blocks and where, and freeze all activity if they see a negative situation arise. Students can also use nicknames or generic account names to protect their identities. All of these features make using this game a very safe option. ='Laying the Groundwork'= {C}Earlier, we raised some questions we must address before using Minecraft to teach. We have already addressed the questions of time by discussing the idea of using the Minecraft Beta Club to investigate the game’s potential. Four additional broad questions, some answers, and where we can continue looking for answers follow: 'Do we have the necessary hardware and internet connection to implement using this game?' Where we can find the answers: ''' '''1. School and Central Office Technology Specialists 2'''. Game Specifications Hardware Requirements *Minimum requirements (won't be very fun!): **CPU : Intel P4/NetBurst architecture or its AMD equivalent (AMD K7) **RAM : 800MB **GPU : GeForce3 or ATI Radeon 7xxx and up. **HDD : At least 10MB for game data **Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 5 or up is required to be able to run the game. *Recommended requirements: **CPU : Intel Pentium D or AMD Athlon 64 (K8) 2.6 GHz **RAM : 2GB **GPU : GeForce 6xxx or ATI Radeon 9xxx and up with OpenGL 2.0 support (excluding integrated chipsets)HDD : 150MB Software Requirements *Minecraft Release 1.3.1 or newer. Older versions will need to be updated to current versions. *Java (Java SE 6 Update 32 or Java SE 7 Update 4 or newer is preferred) (Hardware Performance, Minecraft Wiki, 8 Aug 2012). {C}For more information about computer specifications and hardware suggestions visit the Performance Hardware Performance page of theofficial Minecraft Wiki official Minecraft Wiki. '''3. Information about private servers *The Minecraft Edu wiki has an excellent discussion on how to set up private servers through either a dedicated computer or the internet. 'Where is the funding for implementing this game coming from?' Where we can find the answers: 1'''.Speak with school administration about school technology budget. '''2.Speak with the PTA about fundraising opportunities. 3'.Research Grant opportunities. *Grants for Educators *Funding Your Technology Dreams *Donor's Choose 'Who will be involved in implementing the program, and which students will participate? Where we can find the answers: {C}1'.Present proposal at a staff meeting. '''2.'Send an informative letter home to parents before introducing the program to students (provide link to wiki). '''3.Introduce game to 4th and 5th grade students to identify interested students. 'How will we decide what to activities to include in the program?' Where we can find the answers: 1.Common Core and Essential Standards 2.The game itself 3.Student interest 4.Other schools and websites discussing using Minecraft in instruction. (see links) 5.Teacher ideas. (see ideas) All of the above questions will first be investigated by me. As other teachers join the project, I will delegate tasks such as researching answers to the above questions to them. Ideally, these questions should be answered as close to the beginning of the school year as possible so that we can begin the club early in the year. Beginning early will allow us to develop more ideas and train our older students to mentor younger students who eventually participate. ='Owning the Decision'= It is essential that we recognize how important it is to integrate technology and 21st century learning skills into our teaching. The students we teach are growing up surrounded by technology, media, and gaming. They are constantly connected to and engaged by something. It is unfortunate that for many students, school is the least engaging part of their day. 'Who will support using this game?' {C}Many teachers realize that school needs to find ways to make school more engaging for students. These are the teachers that will support trying to use Minecraft and other games in their instruction. Parents who see value in gaming will also support this initiative. Finally, students themselves will be excited about the opportunity to be engaged by learning. We can involve all of these interested parties in the Minecraft Beta Club in a number of ways. 'How can we get our supporters involved?' We can involve teachers and students by having them join and participate in the club. As part of the club, there will be focus sessions where participants discuss activities and ideas. Teachers will write lesson plans and contribute to the wiki to help other teachers. Parents can participate by supporting teachers and assisting with fundraisers. They can also communicate with other parents and voice their support for game-based learning in order to secure more funding for our programs. 'Who will resist using this game?' There are also many people who may resist using Minecraft in teaching. While there may be teachers who are against using video games in instruction or who think technology will be more distracting than it is beneficial, I think the main reason for resistance is a lack of time. Teachers are overwhelmed by new resources and new trainings without the support to back them up, and my proposal to use Minecraft in instruction is no different. 'How can we reassure those who are resistant?' Since overloaded work schedules and of lack of time and support are likely the main reasons behind resistance to projects such as the Minecraft Beta Club, I am asking for volunteers and creating a wiki that will serve as support for teachers who decide to implement this tool. It is unfair to ask teachers to change their instruction without providing adequate support. By using this wiki and adding to it throughout Minecraft Beta Club, teachers can learn about and begin implementing Minecraft in their teaching at their own pace and at their own will. Also, hopefully by the end of the first year of Minecraft Beta Club, we will have several lessons and activities planned to guide hesitant teachers. Also, as food for thought for those teachers who are skeptical of using videogames, Brooks-Young (2010) makes this point: "Interestingly, this game structure closely resembles a well-designed lesson plan. For example, games have structure, provided through rules of play and clear objectives. Players get feedback throughout the game letting them know whether the strategies being used are helping to achieve the objectives" (p.90). The structure of game play may be comforting to more traditional teachers. If they apply what they know about lesson planning, they may begin to understand the link between gaming and learning. 'Should we proceed with our plans to create Minecraft Beta Club and begin using Minecraft in our instruction?' Absolutely! Although there are some concerns about using games in learning such as lack of time, lack of infrastructure, and lack of funding, there are ways to overcome these obstacles as mentioned earlier. The potential benefits of using games to engage learners will far outweigh the concerns. This does not mean that there will be immediate success; however, this is why we are beginning this project as an afterschool club in a low risk environment. Teachers need not worry about Minecraft detracting from classroom learning time. The trial and error period will take place outside of the general classroom in the beginning to allow us to work through some of the problems and build a support system before we encourage widespread use. ='Next Steps'= Once we make the decision to proceed with creating the Minecraft Beta Club, we will need to develop an action plan for its implementation. The following table details some of the steps we will need to take and various resources and responsibilities required as well as how we will evaluate the success of each step. It is obvious from the above timeline that adhering to the timeline goals will be difficult if the proposal is not presented during the summer prior to the target school year at the latest. This is an ambitious plan, and will likely change as we progress through the steps. ='Conclusion'= By now you know a lot about the logistical considerations required before we attempt to implement the Minecraft Beta Club and use this game in our instruction. However, you may still be unsure of everything players and teachers can do in Minecraft. The links, ideas, and Videos and Pictures tabs provide more information about the game itself, what players can do with it, and what teachers are already doing. Take some time to explore those pages, and feel free to add some of your own resources or ideas. ='References and Links in this Proposal'= Abshire, S. (n.d.). Funding your technology dreams. Retrieved from http://www.cpsb.org/scripts/abshire/grants.asp. Brooks-Young, S. (2010). Teaching kids with the tools kids really use. Thousand Oaks, CA. Corwin Curse, Inc. (2012). Minecraft forums. Retrieved from http://www.minecraftforum.net/index.php. Curse, Inc. (3 Aug 2012). Minecraft Wiki. Retrieved from http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Minecraft_Wiki. Donor's Choose. (2012). Retrieved from http://www.donorschoose.org. "Grants for educators." (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.udel.edu/itug/grants_info.html. Husdawg, LLC. (2012). Can you run it? Retrieved from http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri/intro.aspx. inthelittlewood. (2 June 2011). Minecraft teacher's tutorial world. Retrieved from http://youtu.be/qlbBE0UCVpo Klopfer, E., Osterweil, S., and Salen, K. (2009). Moving learning games forward: Obstacles, opportunities, & openness. Education Arcade. Retrieved from http://education.mit.edu/papers/MovingLearningGamesForward_EdArcade.pdf. MinecraftEDU. (5 April 2012). MinecraftEDU wiki. Retrieved from http://minecraftedu.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page. Mojang. (2009-2012). Minecraft. Retrieved from http://www.minecraft.net/. North American Simulation and Gaming Association (NASAGA). (2012). Why use games to teach? Retrieved from http://www.nasaga.org/page/why-use-games-to-teach. Nuclear Fallout Server Rentals. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.nfoservers.com/order.php. Public Schools of North Carolina Department of Instruction. (n.d.). Common core state and nc essential standards. Retrieved from http://www.ncpublicschools.org/acre/standards/. Teacher Gaming, LLC. (n.d.). MinecraftEDU.com Retrieved from http://minecraftedu.com/index.php. Category:Introduction Category:Introduction